What the hell is a mero?

I was driving home from the the river today and bumped into my neighbour Andrés. He is another fisherman, just like me, except that he fishes only in the sea. I told him I was had been to the river and had caught three barbel. He asked me what kind of size they were and I used the universal gesture that indicates the length of the fish as the distance between the palms of the hands. I told him the best fish might have been a kilo and a half, mas o menos.

Then he put me to shame by pointing out that he had recently caught a “mero” of 14kg in Algeciras. “Jesus, that´s a big fish” I thought “but what the hell is a mero?”

It turns out that a mero is a grouper and it seems likely that Andrés´big fish was a dusky grouper which is the grouper species that seems to rule the roost in the Mediterranean. These are big predatory fish that hang out in rocky water with plenty of caves and cover. They can hoover just about anything into their cavernous mouths but are particularly partial to octopus.

Andrés took his fish at night in a little cove which in which the fish are cut off between high tides. Considering he was fishing from the shore that´s a hell of a catch.

We spoke on the dirt track leading to our houses and the mobile phone with pictures of Andrés´ big fish was not to hand but I would be keen to see the pictures some time.

In the meantime here is a picture of the Dusky – the Mediterranean´s largest grouper. I came across another grouper species, not of the Mediterranean, but of Indo-Pacific called the blue-spotted grouper when trying to find out what “mero” means and I have attached a picture of this one simply because it is so beautiful. There are a large number of species of grouper but I can not imagine any being prettier.